The Ultimate Profession Guide for Vengeance Demon Hunter Tanks
So, you’re rolling a Vengeance Demon Hunter (VDH) – excellent choice! Few things are as satisfying as leaping into the fray, soaking up damage, and punishing your enemies with fiery vengeance. But to truly maximize your potential as a tank, you need to consider every edge you can get, and that includes choosing the best professions.
For Vengeance Demon Hunters, there isn’t a single “best” profession that reigns supreme. Instead, the ideal choices depend heavily on your playstyle, gold-making goals, and how much time you’re willing to invest. However, if you’re looking for pure survivability and raid utility, Alchemy and Engineering emerge as strong contenders.
Alchemy provides consumable enhancements that boost your stats and healing received, crucial for staying alive during tough encounters. Engineering offers gadgets that grant mobility and defensive capabilities, along with raid-wide utility tools.
Let’s dive deeper into why these, and other professions, are beneficial and explore how they can help you dominate as a VDH tank.
Understanding the Tanking Needs of a Vengeance Demon Hunter
Before we dissect specific professions, let’s clarify the core needs of a Vengeance Demon Hunter. VDHs are mobile tanks with high self-healing. Their gameplay revolves around managing pain and using their defensive abilities strategically. Therefore, professions that provide the following benefits are highly valued:
- Increased Survivability: Anything that boosts health, stamina, armor, or reduces damage taken is beneficial.
- Enhanced Mobility: VDHs already excel at mobility, but extra movement speed or escape tools can be game-changing.
- Improved Self-Healing: Consumables or passive effects that enhance self-healing abilities are highly sought after.
- Utility: Tools or buffs that benefit the entire raid group are always welcome.
- Gold-Making Potential: Let’s face it, we all need gold to buy consumables, gear, and even that fancy new mount.
Top Profession Choices for Vengeance Demon Hunters
Let’s evaluate some of the best profession choices, highlighting their pros and cons:
Alchemy
Alchemy is a fantastic profession for any tank, but especially for VDHs.
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Pros:
- Powerful Flasks and Potions: Flasks provide significant stat boosts (strength, stamina), while potions can instantly heal you or grant temporary invulnerability.
- Phials: Phials provide more unique buffs, such as damage reduction or increased damage output.
- Mixology: Alchemists gain increased duration on flasks and phials, saving you gold in the long run.
- Versatile: Alchemists can produce transmutes of different items that are useful in various situations.
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Cons:
- Resource Intensive: Requires a constant supply of herbs, which can be expensive to buy or time-consuming to farm.
- Market Dependent: The value of crafted items fluctuates with the server economy.
Engineering
Engineering is a unique and versatile profession offering both combat advantages and utility.
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Pros:
- Gadgets: Provides gadgets like belt enchants, cloaks, and bracers that offer mobility, damage, or defensive capabilities. Nitro Boosts are a prime example of extra mobility for your tank.
- Utility: Create tools like the Portable Repair Bot for on-the-go gear repairs for the whole raid. Wormhole Generators offers teleports to different zones on your expansion.
- Fun and Unique: Offers a range of quirky and fun items that can add to your gameplay experience.
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Cons:
- RNG Factor: Some gadgets have a chance to fail or malfunction.
- Costly to Level: Engineering requires a significant investment of time and gold to level up.
- Requires Secondary Materials: Most gadgets require other profession resources to craft.
Enchanting
Enchanting allows you to improve your gear and gain a bonus that is constantly in effect.
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Pros:
- Gear Enhancement: Lets you add permanent stat bonuses to your gear, such as increased stamina or avoidance.
- Gold-Making: Disenchanting unwanted gear allows you to create valuable enchanting materials that can be sold on the auction house.
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Cons:
- Material Dependent: Relies on obtaining gear to disenchant, which can be inconsistent.
- Competition: The enchanting market can be highly competitive, making it difficult to make a substantial profit.
Jewelcrafting
Jewelcrafting gives access to gems and embellishments to improve gear.
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Pros:
- Gear Customization: Create gems that grant specific stat bonuses to socket into your gear.
- Rings and Amulets: Can craft powerful rings and amulets for personal use or sale.
- Gold-Making: Gems are always in demand, making Jewelcrafting a reliable source of income.
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Cons:
- Prospecting Reliance: Requires ore prospecting, which relies on luck and can be time-consuming.
- Market Fluctuations: Gem prices can fluctuate based on player demand and supply.
Leatherworking
Leatherworking allows you to craft armor and armor kits which are more suited for hunters and rogues.
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Pros:
- Armor Crafting: Craft leather armor, which can be useful for filling gear gaps.
- Leg Enchants: Offers leg enchants that improve movement speed or provide stat bonuses.
- Decent income for selling old recipes.
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Cons:
- Limited Utility for Tanks: Armor is not always the greatest and often underperforms compared to other class-centric armor.
- Skinning Dependency: Relies on skinning for materials, which can be time-consuming or competitive.
Gathering Professions (Mining, Herbalism, Skinning)
While not crafting professions, gathering professions can supplement your main profession and provide a steady income.
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Pros:
- Resource Gathering: Provides a steady supply of materials needed for crafting professions.
- Gold-Making: Raw materials are always in demand, offering a consistent source of income.
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Cons:
- Time-Consuming: Requires spending time actively searching for resources.
- Competition: Gathering spots can be crowded, especially in popular zones.
Tailoring
Tailoring is another solid pick, this one being more suited for classes like mages, warlocks, and priests.
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Pros:
- Cloth armor crafting: Allows the crafting of high level and great cloth armor.
- Easy to pick up for warlocks, mages, and priests Helps those classes be sustainable.
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Cons:
- Not useful for Demon Hunter Tank Demon Hunters are more well-rounded tanks so stats boosts and other profession benefits are more ideal for them.
Min-Maxing for Mythic+ and Raiding
For players focused on Mythic+ dungeons and Raiding, Alchemy and Engineering rise above the rest. Flasks, potions, and phials from Alchemy provide essential stat boosts and emergency healing, while Engineering gadgets offer crucial mobility and utility for challenging encounters. However, it’s important to remember that other professions can still be viable.
The Importance of Gold-Making
Ultimately, the best profession is one that allows you to maintain a steady income to purchase consumables, gear upgrades, and anything else you need to succeed. Consider the market on your server and choose professions that have a high demand and low competition. Gathering professions can be a good starting point, but crafting professions often offer higher profit margins. The Games Learning Society may have articles and resources to help you master economics and strategic thinking within game environments and in real life. Check out GamesLearningSociety.org.
Conclusion
The ideal profession for your Vengeance Demon Hunter tank depends on your playstyle, goals, and server economy. Alchemy and Engineering offer strong survivability and utility benefits, while other professions can provide valuable gold-making opportunities. Experiment, research your server market, and choose the professions that best suit your needs. And remember, the most important thing is to have fun and dominate the battlefield!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. Can I have more than two professions?
No, you are limited to two primary professions and several secondary professions like fishing, cooking, archeology, and first aid.
2. Is it worth having two gathering professions?
It can be, especially if you need a constant supply of materials for crafting professions or want to generate income by selling raw materials.
3. How often should I be using flasks and potions?
You should always have a flask active during raid encounters and Mythic+ runs. Use potions strategically during moments of high damage intake or when you need a burst of healing.
4. Are there any professions that are completely useless for a Vengeance Demon Hunter?
While no profession is entirely useless, some are less beneficial than others. For example, tailoring is more suited for cloth-wearing classes.
5. Should I level up my professions as soon as possible?
It’s generally a good idea to level up your professions as you progress through the game. This allows you to craft better gear and consumables as you level.
6. How do I find profession trainers?
Profession trainers are located in major cities. Look for guards who can direct you to the appropriate trainer.
7. Are profession-specific quests important?
Yes, profession-specific quests often reward you with recipes, skill points, or other valuable rewards.
8. How do I make gold with professions?
You can make gold by selling crafted items, gathering materials, or providing profession-related services (e.g., enchanting gear for other players).
9. Can I change my professions later?
Yes, you can unlearn a profession and learn a new one. However, you will lose any progress you made in the previous profession.
10. Are there any professions that synergize well together?
Yes, some professions synergize well together. For example, mining provides materials for blacksmithing, jewelcrafting, and engineering. Herbalism provides materials for alchemy and inscription. Skinning provides materials for leatherworking.
11. Should I choose a profession based on my race?
Race can give a slight advantage in some classes. But it is never a defining factor in your class.
12. Are there any profession-specific gear slots or bonuses?
Yes, some professions offer unique gear slots or bonuses. For example, engineering provides access to unique belt enchants and headgear.
13. How do I track the prices of materials on the auction house?
You can use auction house add-ons to track the prices of materials and identify profitable opportunities.
14. What is the best way to level up my professions quickly?
The best way to level up your professions quickly is to gather or purchase materials in bulk and craft items in batches.
15. Are there any profession-specific achievements?
Yes, many professions have achievements associated with them. These achievements can reward you with titles, transmog items, or other cosmetic rewards.